Former Giants pitcher Shawn Estes, who would have attended Stanford if he hadn’t turned pro, is known as a pretty smart guy. This belief persists after he stole a police bike for a joyride in Los Gatos; after he forgot to slide in the 2000 playoffs, a gaffe that played all sorts of havoc with the rotation and bullpen; and after such baffling inconsistency that he sought help from a sports psychologist.

In that light, this could be the perfect career coda for the left-hander. It certainly is among the oddest holdouts you’ll ever see.

Estes, in a long interview with his hometown Reno Gazette-Journal, disputed reports that he had retired at age 36.

“I retired from Triple-A, let’s put it that way,” he said.

Ah. Makes perfect sense.

Estes explained that after going 3-4 with a 3.07 ERA with Albuquerque, the Dodgers’ top farm team, he doesn’t see himself as a minor league pitcher. Because the team with the major leagues’ best record doesn’t have room for him right now, he went home. And because he and his agent neglected to ask for a release date if he hadn’t been promoted — something that’s standard procedure for older players but one he didn’t think he needed because “I didn’t feel I was ever going to pitch in Triple-A” — he is at the mercy of the big league club to trade him.

Estes said every team has been notified of his predicament and Dodgers G.M. Ned Colletti is willing to work out some kind of trade, but the appeal to his old Giants buddy to simply release him have fallen on deaf ears because “it is a big business.” (Funny, but the $22.5 million he has made since 1995 somehow didn’t clue him in on that big business part.)

“Mentally, I wasn’t into it. I needed the big league atmosphere and big league hitters to get those juices flowing,” Estes said.

So the obvious way of demonstrating his competitive fire is to go home, sit around for a month and let his arm get out of shape.

Otto Warmbier was arrested in January 2016 at the end of a brief tourist visit to North Korea. He had been medically evacuated and was being treated at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center when he died at age 22.